Qualla: Joshua Slocum

Joshua Slocum: Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jean-Pierre Bazard Jpbazard, CC BY-SA 3.0. The boy preferred the smell of salt air to shoe leather. Joshua Slocum was born on February 20, 1844, in Mount Hanley, Nova Scotia, where his father made boots for fishermen in the family shop. Joshua helped, but his attention was fixed on the Bay of Fundy, on the coastal schooners that came and went from the small ports near his home. At eight, his family moved to Brier Island at the mouth of the Bay, where his grandfather kept the lighthouse at Southwest Point. He tried to run away to sea multiple times, first succeeding at fourteen as a cabin boy on a fishing schooner, though he soon returned. In 1860, after his mother's death, sixteen-year-old Joshua left for good, signing on as an ordinary seaman bound for Dublin. He never looked back. Over the next four decades, Slocum would round Cape Horn, command merchant vessels across the Pacific, lose ships to wrecks and mutinies, defend against pirates, and ultimately sail alone around the entire world in a boat he rebuilt with his own hands.

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Image: Jean-Pierre Bazard Jpbazard | CC BY-SA 3.0

Joshua Slocum: A Life Measured in Ships

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Slocum's career reads like an inventory of the Age of Sail's final chapter. From Dublin he crossed to Liverpool and joined a British merchant ship bound for China, rounding Cape Horn twice in two years. By eighteen he held his Second Mate certificate. He rose quickly to Chief Mat...

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Image: Public domain

Joshua Slocum: Hurricanes, Pirates, and Smallpox

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown photographer, CC BY-SA 4.0. Slocum's maritime career was marked by disasters that would have ended most sailors' ambitions. In Alaska, the Washington wrecked during a gale - Slocum rescued his wife, crew, and cargo in open boats, a feat so impressive that the owners gave him command of the Constitution. In ...

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Image: Unknown photographer | CC BY-SA 4.0

Joshua Slocum: Alone Around the World

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jean-Pierre Bazard Jpbazard, CC BY-SA 3.0. In Fairhaven, Massachusetts, Slocum rebuilt a derelict gaff-rigged sloop called the Spray, launching it in 1892. On April 24, 1895, he sailed from Boston. After visiting his boyhood home on Brier Island, he departed North America from Sambro Island Lighthouse near Halifax on July...

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Image: Jean-Pierre Bazard Jpbazard | CC BY-SA 3.0

Joshua Slocum: The Writer on the Water

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carlstaffanholmer, CC BY-SA 4.0. Slocum's book, Sailing Alone Around the World, published in 1900, became an international bestseller and a classic of travel literature. Sir Edwin Arnold called it the most extraordinary book ever published. Slocum was invited to speak alongside Mark Twain at a dinner in December...

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Image: Carlstaffanholmer | CC BY-SA 4.0

Joshua Slocum: Into the Unknown

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jean-Pierre Bazard Jpbazard, CC BY-SA 3.0. By 1909, book revenues had dried up. Slocum prepared to sell his farm on Martha's Vineyard and planned a new adventure exploring the Orinoco, Rio Negro, and Amazon Rivers, with hopes of another book deal. In November 1909, he set sail from Vineyard Haven aboard the aging Spray fo...

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Image: Jean-Pierre Bazard Jpbazard | CC BY-SA 3.0